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Today’s movie of the day was a nice surprise! It’s not what I expected, but it delivered something that I didn’t even know I wanted to see!
Movie of the Day: The Only Ones
Today’s movie is The Only Ones. It was released last Tuesday as a digital rental, and from the trailers and write-ups, I expected it to be a low-budget slasher. Instead, what I got is a movie more along the lines of something like Bodies Bodies Bodies. A series of gruesome deaths does occur, but the way those deaths happen come not from a killer stalking and slashing victims, but from multiple people overcome with fear, anger, and paranoia.
The opening sequence of The Only Ones teases a stereotypical slasher setup, but that’s not what follows. The opening is actually a misdirection. It’s a story being told by one of the characters in the movie. The actual story follows a group of friends staying at a house isolated deep in the woods, but there is no masked killer in The Only Ones. There is, however, a lot of death.
After about forty minutes or so of getting to know the main group of interesting and well-developed characters, someone is killed. I won’t say how or why, but we see it happen. We also see who does the killing, so this movie is not a murder mystery. The important part is, the other characters don’t necessarily know who killed whom, or why they did what they did. That leads to fear, and fear leads to aggression. The danger in The Only Ones comes from within the group (mostly). Everyone in this movie is a potential killer and a potential victim.
Star Rating: 3.5 out of 5 (good)
I thoroughly enjoyed The Only Ones. I don’t really want to say too much about the plot, because that will ruin the experience. I’ll just say that the deaths are very well done, especially for a low-budget film like this. The characters are interesting, and the story is fun. There are some stumbles here and there, but the overall experience is excellent. If you want to know more, take a look at my full review of The Only Ones.
You can rent The Only Ones now on VOD platforms including Amazon Prime Video.
Birthdays
Stuart Gordon, one of the great horror directors of the 1980s and beyond, was born on August 11th, 1947. His best movie is Re-Animator (1985), and he followed that up with From Beyond (1986) for a truly spectacular way of introducing himself to horror fans. A few of my other favorite movies of his are Dolls (1986), The Pit and the Pendulum (1991), and Castle Freak (1995).
Anna Massey was also born on August 11th, in 1937. Anna has well over 100 film and TV credits, and one of her first roles was in the influential horror film Peeping Tom (1960). She played Helen, the neighbor who befriends the lead character, Mark. Anna also appeared in the anthology film The Vault of Horror (1973), and in thrillers including Frenzy (1972) and briefly in The Machinist (2004).
Events on This Day
A Nightmare on Elm Street 5: The Dream Child was released in theaters on August 11th, 1989. The movie-a-year pace since Dream Warriors was starting to catch up to the franchise, so The Dream Child isn’t the best in the series. It is notable for having a returning final girl who [SPOILER] lives through two movies [END SPOILER].
Also released on August 11th, in 2023, The Last Voyage of the Demeter was released in US theaters. This film tells the story of Dracula’s voyage across the sea as he heads to England. It’s told from the perspective of the ship’s crew, and Dracula takes a form that is more animalistic than we’re used to seeing in many other live-action portrayals of the classic monster.
More movies released on August 11th:
- King Kong vs. Godzilla (Japan, 1962)
- Matango (Japan, 1963)
- Pulse (2006)
- Annabelle: Creation (2017)
Thank you as always for reading! I know I keep talking about a binge to try to catch up on some of my new-horror backlog from this year, so hopefully that starts this week!
